Mark Goyette

Vermont's noted restorer with a Pebble Beach Best of Show winning car to his credit

Feature Article from Hemmings Classic Car

We've seen Sixties compact cars restored to near 1,000-point perfection--cars that, if judged strictly on their merits, could hold their own in any show in the world. But they don't get invited to Pebble Beach, the greatest assemblage of collector cars in the world. To get to Pebble Beach, even more than being wonderfully restored, a car has to be wonderfully special. And to get the call to work on something unique, you have to be special, too.

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Mark Goyette grew up around cars, with parents actively involved in the hobby here in Hemmings' hometown of Bennington, Vermont. While he was always interested in cars, he originally thought he would take a tangential path, and started pursuing architecture at a technical college. On Christmas break during his sophomore year, in the early Seventies, he thought he'd make a few bucks working as a draftsman for a local architect until school rolled around again--but that temporary gig turned into a job offer and he never went back. Instead, after four years, he moved to Southern California, which in the mid-Seventies was a somewhat more happening place than Southern Vermont. He worked on cars occasionally, but mostly continued as an architectural draftsman and designer.
At the same time, Mark got the idea that he could maybe build a 1930s-era Jaguar or Morgan-style roadster kit on a Triumph chassis. His end product, the beautiful Hathaway "was not a financial success, but I learned a lot," he recalled. In the multi-year gestation of that project, he made the fateful acquaintance of Neil Glassmoyer. "Neil was the business guy, which was the part that I was really bad at," said Mark, "but we both had a lot of enthusiasm."
Mark and Neil kicked around the idea of building a more ambitious kit car, styled after the Ferrari 250 GT California, which even then was priced well into the six figures. That idea might never have gone anywhere if Mark hadn't met Bob Webb, who had built the first Excaliburs for Brooks Stevens, as well as various race cars, including the body for Roger Penske's notorious Zerex Special. While he only knew Bob for a couple of years before he died, Mark considers him a mentor who taught him a lot about building and fabricating components.
After arranging for a client to cover the costs of developing a prototype "Modena Spyder," lightning struck for the first time, when Paramount Pictures executives saw a photo of the car at a Knott's Berry Farm show in Anaheim, California. In search of a car to use in an upcoming movie, they contacted Mark, who ended up agreeing to sell two kits and lease a third completed car for Ferris Bueller's Day Off. One problem: They needed them in seven weeks. "They presumed we were set up for the build," said Mark, but they had no tooling, no body molds, not even a proper shop. "We rented a shop, built tooling and produced two kits and a car in seven weeks."
The enduring success of the film and tremendous exposure put them on the map, but it also got the attention of Ferrari, which was already on a hair trigger, thanks to a replica being used in Miami Vice (a car coincidentally being made by a friend down the street from Mark). The Modena was the final straw, and they sued four replica makers at once. After about 25 cars, Mark was out of the Modena Spider business.
After that, Mark says he went through a muscle car phase, and the San Diego area was fertile ground for finding cars. That ended when he was hired as a designer for the Mattman Company (now Mattman Global Specialty Vehicles), a specialty builder that constructed special-order emergency vehicles, primarily for rescue squads, police and fire departments. That was the final piece in the puzzle, because most of the vehicles were one-offs, "So there was a lot of unique fabrication...it really fine-tuned my skills, and I basically had a well-equipped metal shop at my disposal."
In 1996, Mattman hired a new production manager, and they butted heads from day one. A couple of months later, Mark walked across the street one evening to blow off steam at his friend Alan Taylor's restoration shop, and to drop some broad hints that Alan should hire him. Instead, Alan suggested Mark contact a client with a car that needed to be restored, but who had less money to spend than Alan wanted.
The next two days changed Mark's life. What the client, George Lingenbrink, had was a one-off 1932 Daimler 40/50 Double Six Sport Saloon; against all odds, he gave Mark the job of restoring it. "We talked about it, and I quoted him a number that was way, way too low." Within a week, he had given notice at Mattman and opened a shop of his own. "I really wanted the job, but I never thought I had a shot in hell. If you want to get into the restoration business, what a way to start out."
Just having that car in the shop led to other European classics, including a 1957 Maserati 450S driven by Sir Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio, a 1938 Talbot T 150-C-SS teardrop coupe. And when the Daimler was done three years later, it was not only invited to Pebble Beach, it won the 1999 Best of Show, forever cementing Mark among the top rank of restorers.
"Pebble didn't make the phone ring, though," Mark said. "Doing something like that gives you credibility, more than anything else, but I didn't market myself very much at all." He says it was more of a reassurance for existing clients than anything else; fortunately, Mark has never been interested in running the sort of high-pressure shop that churns out Pebble Beach cars on an annual basis. "I don't know if you'd be amazed, or if appalled would be a better word, if you saw my old shop," a hangar at an aircraft junkyard, with chickens belonging to the families who lived in trailers next door running around in front.
For all of those famous sports cars on his resume, though, it really is American cars that are the center of his enthusiasm. Mark picked up his belongings and moved his shop to Bennington in 2001, and today it's a showcase of important early American collector cars: There's his personal 1931 Chrysler CD8 Deluxe in primer, a fantastic 1922 Paige 6-66 Daytona speedster, a 1917 V-8 Cole 860 and, in pieces in the back, the sole complete Premier 6-40 drivetrain, along with parts of the 1913 car's body. There's only a single European car in there, and even that's Brass Era: a 1913 Mercedes, already accepted to a future Pebble Beach.
"While we were in California, we got heavily involved with the HCCA chapter out there, the La Jolla Regional Group," he said, and toured with them in one of several Overlands he's owned. "The more Brass car work you do, the more credibility you have," he said. "When people realize you can take their car apart, put it back together and drive it, you develop credibility."
Mark's operation now is scaled down from his California days. "I'm happy with the size of my shop. I've had a lot more people working for me at times, but I end up being the manager and I don't end up working on cars enough." But that has its drawbacks, too: "I'd like to have more time to enjoy my cars," he said. "I want time to get out and tour with the HCCA," although Mark hinted quite broadly that he'd be more than happy to provide breakdown service as well: "I would love to go out on a tour to work on cars."
Today, Mark is happy to have two or three cars a time in the shop, and turn out one or two completed projects every year. He is even getting to do a little driving: Mark, his mother, Joyce, and Mark's wife, Irene, just completed a 400-mile round trip in Joyce's Full Classic 1925 Lincoln Model L "Police Flyer." "I'm not about presenting an image," he said. "I wouldn't close the door to work on any car."

This article originally appeared in the October, 2010 issue of Hemmings Classic Car.